Protecting Yourself from Phishing Scams

eBay will never send you emails asking your to update your account and then provide a link in the email for you to click for that purpose. While eBay will send you emails (and lots of themeither informational or promotional in nature), they don’t send out the type of “instant account management” email.

Phishing emails come in all shapes and sizes, many of which look extremely official. If you receive one of these phony emails, you can report it to spoof@ebay.com

If you receive this type of email, for either your eBay or PayPal account, you can be sure it’s a scamin particular, a “phishing” scam. If you click the link in the email (which looks like a real, honest-to-goodness eBay URL), you won’t be taken to eBay. Instead, that fake URL will take you to another site, run by the scammer, which will be tricked up to look like the eBay site. If you enter your personal information, as requested, you’re actually delivering it to the scammer, and you’re now a victim of identity theft. The scammer can use the information you provided to hack into your eBay account, make unauthorized charges on your credit card, and maybe even drain your banking account.

It goes without saying that you should never respond to this type of email, no matter how official-looking it appears. If you want to make changes to your eBay or PayPal account, never do so from an email link. Instead, use your web browser to go directly to the official site, and make your changes there. No one from eBay or PayPal will ever ask you for this information via email. Be warned!